If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll let you in on a little secret – the cabinet your guitar speaker lives in is possibly the most important variable in your signal chain from guitar to speaker.  When you think about your guitar amp, you’ll think primarily of the amp electronics – how many watts, what tubes, etc.  After that you might think about the type of speaker setup – one 12, one 10, two 10’s, etc.  But the speaker cabinet itself might end up being half the sound of the amp, and in some cases more.  The speaker cabinet is massively important.

When we talk about speaker cabinets, there aren’t too many variables.  The wood used is one variable.  The size and shapes are two more.  The number of speakers and size of speakers.  And finally, the back of the cabinet – open or closed?  Put all of these variables together and you have something that sounds small and boxy (Fender Blues Junior) or big and huge (Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.)

Let’s look at those two amps.  The Blues Junior is perhaps the best selling tube amp of all time.  It’s loud enough for a gig, cheap enough that hobbyists can afford it, and for some reason people like the way it sounds.  It sounds boxy because it IS a box.  A small box.  Little known fact – disconnect the internal speaker in a Blues Junior and connect it to a large cabinet and it’s a different sounding amp.  It sounds huge.  Same thing goes for my current fave budget amp, the Fender Bassbreaker 15.  It’s a small box and it sounds boxy.  Connect it to a better speaker cab and it’s amazing.

Is it really that simple?  YES.  It is.  Because… science.

Advantages of a Small Closed Box Speaker Cabinest

Fender (and other companies) use small box cabinets for many reasons:

  • They cost less to build
  • They are easier to pick up and move around
  • Closed-back cabinets give a tighter more focused sound
  • Most amateur guitars don’t understand good tone
  • They’re great amps to mic up because of the tightness of the sound

There’s a reason home stereo speakers (used back when people cared what music sounded like) were closed back boxes – tight sound.  Great for reproducing music.

If Fender made a Blues Junior in a Hot Rod Deluxe cabinet, it’d be an amazing sounding amp.  But lots of musicians would rather have the lighter cabinet.  Even to many pros, the Blues Junior sounds “good enough.”  Let’s face it, at a live gig, no one in the audience is going to care about the size of the guitarist’s speaker cabinet.  Except me.  And even then, in the mix with the band, I’m not sure how much I’d care.  I dog the Blues Junior because if they’d made the cab a little bigger, that amp would slay.  I’m likely going to buy a used Blues Junior at some point and re-case the head.  Then I’ll toss the cabinet.

So if a closed back on a cab makes an amp sound boxy, what about bigger closed back cabs?  Like a one 12 Orange?  That doesn’t sound boxy.  It sounds awesome.  Yes – because it’s big enough.  Make the cabinet big, and the back on the cab won’t be as much of a factor.  Then you’ve got a tight sound with focus that doesn’t sound boxy.  You’ve also got a bigger price tag and the cab is far heavier.  Tone comes at a cost.

The Hot Rod Deluxe is an amazing sounding amp in a big room when you turn it above 3.  It seems to really fill the room.  That’s because it’s a bigger cabinet and it has an open back.  The open back costs you some bass, some tight focus, but it gives a bigger, more natural room filling sound at louder volumes.  That’s why the HRD is a terrible home amp and a great gigging amp.  But again, it’s a heavy sucker.  Tone comes at a cost.

Even with my Blues Junior bashing, I’ll tell you it’s a good amp.  Cranking it up diminishes a bit of the boxy, and played with drums and bass you forget the box.  But the Hot Rod Deluxe will kick it’s ass in a live gig.  Switch cabs and it’d be the other way around.

What about the big closed back four 12 cabs, made by Marshall, Orange, and a lot of other companies?  They sound great, no doubt.  But almost no one gigs with them, because they’re a pain in the ass to carry around.  Big stars can still do it.  What about the two 12 cabs?  I’ve seen a few of those.  They’re a cool compromise – I like ’em.

Ultimately I hate the sound of small box cabs.  I bought the Orange one 12 because it sounds amazing.  Similarly I’d love to buy a big open back one 12 cab someday.  I almost kept my Hot Rod Deluxe just for the cabinet.  But it had a good trade value.

Don’t underestimate the cabinet.  It matters a great deal.